Tsunami Dock Work Underway

Workers have started cutting up the giant Japanese dock that was torn away by last year's tsunami and washed up on an Oregon beach. Oregon Parks Department spokesman Chris Havel said Wednesday that workers for Ballard Diving and Salvage got their wire saw working and decided to just go ahead with the first cut, rather than wait for afternoon.

The plan is to cut the 165-ton concrete dock into five slices, like a loaf of bread, and load them onto flatbed trucks, which drive over the soft sand on a roadway of planks and steel plates. One piece, bearing a mural of some waves painted along one side, will stay in Newport as a memorial to last year's tsunami in Japan. The rest will be trucked to Portland for dismantling.